


A Match Lit in the Lantern of my Heart

by holdyourbreathfornow



Series: Family of Three [17]
Category: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Burns, Emotional Abuse, Multi, Old emotional trauma coming back, Physical Abuse, emotional breakdowns, this one is... Angsty, threats of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdyourbreathfornow/pseuds/holdyourbreathfornow
Summary: Gordon thought he could heal from everything that’s happened to him.Dr. Montobar is doing his best to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Relationships: Bubby/Dr. Coomer, Gordon Freeman & Darnold Pepper, Tommy Coolatta/Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Series: Family of Three [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918150
Comments: 17
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all can thank deluxetrashqueen-secretidentity on Tumblr for this one :)

The farm house is relatively quiet, Gordon thinks as he lays on the couch. Tommy and Benrey are out with G-Man learning about the fun activity that is faking legal papers for an extra-dimensional being and Gordon’s dads are on a picnic date. Both parties had invited him and Darnold along, but Gordon had just wanted to nap and Darnold was absorbed in his potions down in the basement, barely even noticing when Tommy had called out to him from the top of the staircase.

Gordon actually thinks he should go force Darnold to drink a bottle of water and eat some crackers when the doorbell rings. He lifts his head up from his pillow and looks at the front door.

“Hey, Darnold! Were you expecting a delivery or something?” There’s no answer and Gordon sighs, finally climbing to his feet. He yawns and runs a hand through his hair as he walks to the door.

“Hello? Can I-?” Gordon opens the door, only to freeze, his words dying in his throat and his prosthetic hand gripping the handle hard enough it crumples under his grip.

When Gordon had come out of Black Mesa, minus a hand and plus an entire family, he’d expected everything to be over. He’d thought he could get better. He thought he could finally heal.

But he realizes that’s going to be a hell of a lot harder with Dr. Montobar standing on his front step, looming over him now just as much as he did when Gordon was a scared child.

“Ah, hello, Gordon. Or…” Montobar grins, his teeth glinting unnaturally. “Or should I call you ‘Joshua’ now?”

“Get the fuck out of here.” Gordon mutters, his voice barely loud enough to be heard, but Montobar hears it. He hears it and laughs at Gordon.

“Oh, my dear sweet Gordon, I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet! Maybe after we discuss a little-” Gordon’s muscles finally loosen enough that he can move, and he slams the door closed.

Only for it to be stopped by Dr. Montobar’s foot, strategically placed next to the doorframe.

“That pinched.” Montobar pushes the door open and Gordon staggers back, only staying on his feet by gripping the counter tight enough for it to cut into the palm of his flesh hand. “Gordon, we still have work to do. Your little… Vacation has gone on long enough.”

“I’m not doing shit for you. N-never again.” Gordon spits and Dr. Montobar looks unimpressed. He stares at Gordon for a long moment before he sighs and shakes his head.

“Well, it seems my calculations weren’t as inaccurate as I’d hoped. You did grow a bit of a rebellious streak. But I know how to fix that.” He takes another step towards Gordon, who flinches away, almost thinking he sees latex gloves stretched over Montobar’s spindly hands.

“Don’t- don’t touch me!” His voice cracks with fear and stress, and Montobar chuckles cruelly at him.

“Fine, fine. You’ll come to heel soon enough.” He pulls his hands back and instead folds them serenely behind him. “Shall we play businessman and discuss what I came here to discuss?”

“No, I want you to get the fuck-” Montobar lashes out suddenly. For all that he appears to be old and frail, his grip is like iron, clawing at Gordon’s jaw and making him choke in fear.

“Quiet, boy. You’ll hear what I have to say, or you’ll regret it.” Montobar waits until Gordon nods, tears starting to streak down his face, before he releases Gordon’s throat, Gordon staggering backwards and heaving for air. “Good. Why don’t you pour me a glass of water? I’m too old for long drives like the one here, Gordon.” Gordon says nothing, his hands shaking violently as he pours a glass of water and sets it in front of Montobar. “Apologize for living in the middle of nowhere, Gordon.”

“Uh, s-sorry.”

“Better.” Montobar drains the glass in one go, and Gordon’s quick to take the glass and put it in the sink. “Now, then. I know you’re… Opposed to the idea of rejoining my research, for some unfathomable reason. But a good scientist like myself is prepared for any variable. So, before I broke my poor back driving out here, I did some research on your little friend Tommy’s father. He’s quite the mysterious figure, isn’t he?”

“Yes… Sir.”

“Yes, indeed. But I did dabble in alternate dimensions as you know. It wasn’t hard to find the one the G-Man hailed from. Namely, the dimension where his employers reside. And I’ve heard rumors they have some strange fascination with human currency.” 

Montobar reaches into the pocket of his lab coat, the same one he’s always worn, for as long as Gordon can remember and probably before that. After over twenty years, it’s yellowed with age and torn in places, a visual sign that Montobar isn’t nearly as stable or put-together as he pretends to be.

Either way, the pockets must still be intact, because Montobar pulls out his wallet and drops it onto the table. The leather’s bulging from being so full, and Montobar smiles, pleased with himself.

“So here’s your one and only offer, Gordon: I have enough currency to make even an eldritch hivemind turn its head, which by extension means I can ‘hire’ the G-Man and force him to do anything I want. I imagine this includes murder.”

“Wh-what?” Gordon’s voice fails him and he shakes his head, hands coming up to clutch at his hair. “N-no, no, no, no-”

“Yes, yes, yes, now shut up. Either you meet me at a certain address in two hours, or I hire your little G-Man. This quaint little house has such pristine walls and floors. It’d be a shame to see them ruined with all that blood and gore.”

“Why? B-black Mesa’s gone… The portals are gone. There’s no point!” Gordon yells and Montobar stands, fake smile gone in the blink of an eye.

“I am not done with you! Did you think you could escape just by finding your daddies? Yes, they accepted you back, even without your memories, even if you’re no longer human, but I don’t remember excusing you! I don’t remember saying you could leave!” On the last word, Montobar hauls back and slaps Gordon across the face. He bites down his cry and crouches, cowering. 

The only sound in the kitchen is Montobar’s heavy breathing. When that fades, he straightens up and fixes his glasses.

“I’ll leave the address on the counter. You’re stupidly sentimental enough… I trust you to make the right decision.” Gordon doesn’t look up after the door closes, doesn’t stop shaking when the car engine fades away, doesn’t blink when the door to the basement flies open and Darnold runs over to him, crouching down in front of him.

“Fucking Christ, Gordon, are you okay?” There’s no response, and Darnold sighs. “Of course you’re not okay, that was terrifying. Here, can I touch you?” Gordon drops back into his skin a little bit, just enough to nod and relax a little as Darnold wraps him up. “I was- I heard the whole thing. You’re not alone, I’m right here, I’m gonna help you.”

“Wh-” Gordon’s tongue feels thick and dead in his mouth. He focuses on breathing for a moment before trying to speak again. “Where did he leave the address?”

“On the counter.” It almost physically hurts to do it, but Gordon pulls himself out of Darnold’s hug, crawling to his feet and walking over to where an innocuous white business card lies on the counter.

He ate pancakes in that same seat this morning.

“I can’t drive.” Gordon says, turning back to Darnold and holding the card up. “N-not with how I feel right now.”

“I-I won’t take you!” Darnold also gets to his feet, arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not driving you to- To what might as well be your death, okay?!”

“Darnold. You’re my family.” That breaks through Darnold’s facade and his face drops as he curls in on himself slightly. Gordon walks forward and lets Darnold pull him into another hug. “I’m not gonna let him hurt you. Or anybody else.”

“You know G wouldn’t-”

“I dunno if he’d be able to stop his employers from making him.” Gordon sags a little and drops his head onto Darnold’s shoulder. “I don’t wanna find out.”

“O-okay. Okay, I’ll help you.” Darnold hugs Gordon even tighter. “But- but don’t you dare go easy, okay? You put up a fucking fight. I’ll call the others as soon as we get there, get them to help. It’ll be okay.”

“I trust you.” Gordon mutters and pulls away, neither man acknowledging the tears tracing down both their faces.

-

The drive takes Gordon and Darnold to what looks like an abandoned warehouse in the city. They park and Darnold’s gaze flicks back and forth between Gordon and the warehouse.

“You don’t have to do this.” He tells Gordon, who says nothing, only keeps staring out the window. “Gordon, I’m serious. I-if we call the others now, maybe we can figure something out before the time runs out!”

“It’d take an hour just to drive back home.” Gordon mutters finally, and looks to Darnold as he undoes his seatbelt. He goes to open his door but pauses. “Can you… Tell them I’m sorry?”

“You’re talking like you’re gonna die!” Darnold seems like he’s hovering on the edge of hysteria, but he eventually nods under the weight of GOrdon’s steady gaze. “I… Yeah, I can. But they’re gonna rip you a new one when you come home.”

“I hope so. Call them as soon as I’m inside.” He leans over the console and hugs Darnold, Darnold’s own hands clinging to Gordon tightly. “I gotta go now.”

“Remember, don’t let him win.” Darnold reluctantly lets Gordon go, pulling his phone out of his pocket and already beginning to dial as Gordon slips out of the car and heads across the street.

The inside of the warehouse is just as run-down as the exterior, the only sign anyone’s been there recently a folding table with a single chair next to it.

Montobar sits in the chair, grinning as soon as Gordon steps through the door.

“Ah, Gordon, you came! I’m glad, you only had an hour left!”

“I’m here.” Gordon mutters, his shoulders already tensing up again with fear. But he’s almost surprised to find he’s angry too. Angry at this crazy old bastard who’s sitting in a ruined warehouse like a king ruling over his court.

“Come over here, and we can get started.” Montobar waves to the opposite side of the table and Gordon keeps his head down as he walks over. “I am glad you came.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever felt glad in your life.” Gordon snips before he can stop himself, and Montobar blinks. There’s a long moment of silence before the old man erupts into laughter, his chair tipping back with the force of it.

“Well, look at the mouth on you! But you’d be wrong on that front. I’ve felt a lot of things in my time. But the main emotion lately seems to be regret. Regret that I wasn’t able to do everything with my research that I wanted, regret at how much of it I lost in the Resonance Cascade, regret that I’m the only one left from the original project.”

“There- It’s just you?” Gordon asks, surprised. He had been anticipating that the interior of the warehouse was going to be a well-polished scientific facility. “You’re the last one? And you still went out of your way to find me and threaten me?”

“Careful, Gordon. Remember who’s in charge here.” Montobar’s voice has a trace of carefully contained rage in it, but it can’t hold a candle to the fury that’s pounding through Gordon with every beat of his heart, so hot and thick it almost feels like lava flowing through his veins.

“W-why did you want me to come here?” Gordon asks and finally lifts his head. “What were you hoping to do?”

“I know you’ve still been going to Xen. Otherwise you’d be dead. So I want you to build a portal. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to, it’s simple.”

“What?” Gordon splutters with confusion. “Are you trying to make me do your dirty work for you? Since, you know, all your other little henchmen are dead?”

“Gordon, I can still call the G-Man’s employers.” Though Montobar is trying to keep appearances up, Gordon can almost smell the fear coming off of him. In fact, he can smell it. It smells like smoke, thick and hot and choking. But Gordon breathes it easily, feeling like it’s the first real breath he’s taken since Montobar reappeared in his life.

“Do it.” Gordon grins. “Do it, since everything else seems to have worked out so well!”

“Y-your eyes…” Montobar murmurs, before he shakes his head and slams his wallet on the cheap table once again. “You’re going to regret this!”

“No. I’m done being regretful.” Before Montobar can blink, Gordon reaches out and snatches the wallet up from the table. The leather’s ice cold in his hand, but smoke curls up from it. Gordon blinks and tries to feel confusion, but all he can feel is that same hot rage and an almost intoxicating glee. 

The wallet slowly crumbles to ashes in Gordon’s grip and he grins, wide and so unlike his usual smile. 

“Y- What have you done?” Montobar cries out and Gordon shakes his head.

“I don’t know. But if you still want to hire G, I hope you have some more money on you!”

“You fool.” Montobar coughs once, twice, his eyes watering like he’s crying. “You really are stupid if you think some alien hivemind truly wants human currency.”

“You… Lied?” Gordon asks and finally he feels confusion hover just outside the whirling firestorm his thoughts have become. “What was your plan? Threaten me, get me to come here, and convince me to pick up where you’d left off?”

“I… I don’t know.” Montobar can’t stop coughing, and he covers his mouth with his hands. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was… I was just so angry! You don’t- Black Mesa was all I’d ever known, it was my whole life.”

“Funny.” Gordon murmurs as he lays a hand on the table, head lowered. “That makes two of us.” With a burst of movement, he heaves the table up and away, sending it flying across the room and screeching across the concrete floor. 

“I wanted to improve things!” Montobar’s voice is growing louder, when he’s not coughing. Gordon knows the smoke is coming from him, but his brain refuses to really think about it, focused on Montobar, and the way the old man tries to shrink against his chair as he cowers away from Gordon. “Xen could’ve done so much, helped us advance technology!”

“But you still had to kidnap children to do it.” Gordon’s fist curls into the collar of Montobar’s stupid fucking lab coat and he lifts Montobar from his chair. “You still had to let me suffer and almost die multiple times!”

“Hot… Too hot.” Montobar smacks at Gordon’s arm weakly but Gordon’s grip doesn’t slacken. He wants to see Montobar hurt, he-

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Gordon drops Montobar to the floor, backing away as the old man hacks and wheezes. He falls to his knees, and finally feels the heat that had been rolling off of him, and it hurts, the rage in his veins burns and Gordon starts to cry, his tears sizzling on his cheeks and vanishing into water vapor.

“I… I don’t wanna hurt people.” Gordon mutters and looks at Montobar, who’s staring right back at him. “I’m not… Not you.”

“...Maybe not.” Montobar mutters, his lips cracked and bleeding in the heat rolling off of Gordon, hot enough now that flames lick around Gordon, burning the air and slowly starting to burn Gordon as well. “What a shame that is. My little lab rat.”

“Shut up.” Gordon mutters.

“I changed you. And you can’t ignore that. Can’t just burn that away, can you, little boy?” Montobar starts to laugh and laugh, grating against Gordon’s ears. Gordon hunches in on himself further and he can feel himself growing hotter, like a bomb whose fuse is reaching its end.

Montobar’s laugh continues ringing out as Gordon screams and erupts into nothing but heat.

-

Darnold sits in his car, staring at the warehouse and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel anxiously. He’d called everybody else, and let them know what had happened. Their reactions had been a mixed bag of panic and rage, which really hadn’t been a surprise. Everybody else had agreed to drive back to the house, to plan their next move, and Darnold’s been sitting here, waiting for…

To be honest, he has no idea what he’s waiting for. The first thought to pop into his head is a black van busting through the wall and speeding away with Gordon inside, because that sounds right up Black Mesa’s alley. 

What he isn’t expecting is for all the windows in the warehouse to shatter all at once, flames roaring out as the glass tinkles to the ground. Darnold blinks in surprise for a split second, but then he’s out of his car, pulling a handkerchief out and holding it over his face. 

The door’s too hot to touch, so Darnold shoulder slams it open, almost staggering back as thick waves of heat pour out into the cooler air. Darnold squints and steps further inside.

There seems to be a pillar of fire that came from nowhere, standing in the middle of the room. The flames spin and dance in a column around the pillar, and Darnold almost gasps, only catching himself at the last second.

“G-Gordon?” The flames shift enough for him to see through to the center, where Gordon’s standing in the middle of the inferno. His eyes glow with light, iris and pupil both gone.

“Hot…” Gordon mutters and his voice sounds awful, croaky and thick. “Darnold, it’s too hot…”

“Yeah, I agree.” Darnold tries not to cough, brain whirring as he thinks. “Gordon, I need you to breathe, okay?”

“C-can’t, it’s hot!” Gordon seems to only be growing more panicked, the temperature rising with his emotions, and Darnold holds one hand out, the other still holding his hankie to his face.

“I- I know. But if you just breathe, it’ll get better, I promise. You said you trusted me earlier, right?” Gordon whimpers but nods, and Darnold feels the temperature drop a little, the flames pulling in towards Gordon. He takes half a step closer, one arm still held out to Gordon. “You’re doing great, Gordon. A little bit more, and we can head home, okay? Get you to take a cold shower? Sounds good, right?” The flames keep dying down more and more as Darnold keeps talking, until it’s just Gordon, standing in the middle of the warehouse. 

He blinks, eyes still lost behind a storm of colors, and staggers forward until Darnold’s able to catch him as he collapses. Heat pours off Darnold’s skin, enough to make him wince and have to fight not to let Gordon go. He helps Gordon stand a little more and turns to get both of them out of the warehouse. Darnold almost doesn’t notice the skeleton lying on the floor, black and charred from the fire. When he sees it, he looks at it until they’re out of the warehouse, emotions a confused jumble inside him.

“Okay, just lay down in the back.” Darnold mutters and helps Gordon stretch across the back seat, grimacing at the way the pleather starts creaking under the heat Gordon’s still giving off. “Just… Hang in there, Gordon.” The other man mumbles nonsensically and Darnold hopes Gordon will be able to sleep if the car’s going over the speed limit by a significant amount.

-

G-Man’s waiting outside when the car screeches up to the house, and he throws the back door open, reaching in to scoop Gordon up.

“Careful! He’s hot!” Darnold warns but G-Man still scoops Gordon up with no problem.

“I… Will be fine. The otherssss are downstairsssss. Come.” Matilda hisses when they come into the house, but both men ignore her and run past, heading into the basement.

Bubby and Coomer are working around a tube almost identical to the one Bubby’d been in in Black Mesa, watching as green goo slowly pours in from a large tube. As G-Man comes downstairs, both older men turn towards him. Coomer’s hands fly up to cover his mouth and Bubby rushes over, pressing his hands to Gordon’s face, his son mumbling deliriously as he does.

“Christ, he’s burning up.” Bubby looks up a G-Man. “Help me hook him up. We need to get him in the tube.”

“What’s happening?” Darnold asks, and Coomer comes over to examine Darnold’s own burnt hands.

“Well, Gordon was made, not born. We took a lot of information about the process from Bubby’s own creation. Bubby’s DNA had been altered to have pyrokinesis, which was passed along to Gordon. We didn’t expect him to actually be able to use it, expected it to just act like a recessive gene, but…” Coomer sighs and looks back to where Bubby and G-Man are slowly lowering Gordon into the goo, which steams and hisses upon contact with his skin. “I believe he got stressed enough to force the pyrokinetic DNA to activate.”

“Well, he certainly can get stressed enough.” Darnold tries to lighten the mood with a joke, and Coomer smiles sadly at him, nodding towards the basement dear.

“Let’s get those hands of yours wrapped up, shall we?” Darnold nods and tries to calm down as he and Coomer leave the basement, Bubby and G-Man murmuring quietly behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Gordon floats, his mind thick and murky. Most of the time he doesn’t really have any thoughts, listening to the liquid shifting around him and the hum of machinery lying underneath that. He’s exhausted, and he can still feel the residual heat lurking under his skin.

He doesn’t really know where he is until the first time he really wakes up. It feels like every inch of his skin is pulled thin, stretched over him like the skin of a drum, and even breathing hurts. Gordon’s vision is tinted with green and he blinks, sluggishly shaking his head.

“Hey, Freckles.” Papa’s voice, muffled, reaches Gordon’s ears and though he doesn’t lift his head, he leans a little closer to where the voice is coming from. When his forehead hits something solid, there’s a moment of panic and his skin ripples painfully. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You need to breathe, Gordon. You’re just in an old tube of mine. Family tradition, huh?” Papa laughs at that, but Gordon’s already struggling to keep his eyes open, the brief panic having drained him, and he hears Papa rap his knuckles against the glass of the tube lightly. “Go back to sleep, kiddo.” He finally lets his eyes stay closed, and thinks he hears Papa say something else before he drifts back to sleep.

Gordon isn’t sure how long he sleeps this time, but he doesn’t panic this time when he wakes up. He needs his glasses to see too far beyond the walls of the tube, but as far as he can tell, there’s no one in the basement with him. Gordon tries to curl up in a ball, trying to get comfortable in his low gravity environment, but his skin must be healing because the movement still hurts.

“You managed to burn yourself pretty good.” Papa’s voice comes and Gordon jolts a little bit. Papa must have just walked in. Either that, or Gordon’s vision sucks more than he thought it did. “It’s gonna take some time to grow back. I did the same thing the first time I got out of the tube.” Gordon yawns behind his mask and Papa grins at him. “No sleeping yet, matchstick. You and I are gonna do some practice while you’re healing.” Papa holds out his hand and flames dance across it. Gordon watches, mesmerized, but the flames go out when Papa closes his fist and looks back up at his son.

“It’s gonna be hard to do the fire thing while you’re in that goo, but I wanna make sure you aren’t gonna turn into a Fourth of July show as soon as you come out.” Gordon nods, unable to talk with the mask on. “Alright, first thing we’re gonna do is learn how to regulate body temperature.”

-

Every moment Gordon isn’t sleeping is spent training with Papa, learning to control the heat that he can feel, though he gets used to that quickly enough. The others come and visit, but it’s mostly just him and Papa in the basement. 

“Again.” Papa tells him and Gordon closes his eyes in concentration, pulling the heat in until it’s just a glowing ember behind his sternum. The green ooze around him stops bubbling like it has been since he woke up, and Papa grins through the glass. “Congrats, Freckles. I think you’re gonna be able to come out of the tube soon.” Gordon gives his dad a thumbs up and Papa chuckles, reaching out and laying a hand against the glass, his smile slowly fading away to be replaced with a look of melancholy. 

“You know… I never meant for you to have this power. It just… I never wanted you to have to use it.” Gordon shrugs and lays his hand against his dad’s. “Yeah. I guess it really saved your skin, though, huh?” Papa smiles and turns away from the tube, heading for the control panel, fiddling with it. 

Gordon startles when there’s a click and the liquid around him starts to hiss and move. Slowly the ooze sinks through the floor of the tube until it’s just Gordon, shivering in the empty tube, the medical mask still on.

“You can take that off.” Papa tells him and Gordon does so, flexing his jaw and rubbing at where it’s sore. “How you feeling, space cadet?”

“Slimy.” Gordon mutters and Papa laughs at that, opening the door of the tube and helping Gordon step out on shaky legs. “And weak.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna be.” Papa wraps Gordon up in a towel and drops a second, smaller one on his head, ruffling it over his hair. “Your body got used to not having to support its own weight.” Before either of them can say anything else, Gordon wraps Papa up in a hug, pressing his face against his dad’s shoulder. Papa hugs back, leaning his head against the top of Gordon’s.

“Sorry.” Gordon mutters and feels Papa shake his head.

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for. You were protecting your family. I’m proud of you, Gordon.” Papa holds Gordon at arm’s length and looks at him, eyes tracing over his face. “Though maybe next time don’t set yourself on fire in the process.”

“Okay.” Gordon laughs and Papa starts walking both of them out of the basement.

“Now, for your next greatest obstacle: Stairs.”

-

The rest of the family is scattered throughout the living room and kitchen area when Papa and Gordon exit the basement.

“Look who I found!” Papa calls and everyone’s heads turn to the two of them in almost frightening unison.

“Gordon!” Tommy and Benrey are the first two over and Tommy wraps his arms around Gordon, lifting him up off the floor with the strength of his hug. Benrey shifts into a small creature almost like Matilda, leaping up and twining around Gordon’s neck. “Y-you are  _ never  _ allowed to do that e-e-ever again!”

“Love you.” Gordon mutters into Tommy’s shoulder and Tommy kisses the towel still draped over Gordon’s head.

Dad’s the next to hug Gordon, Gordon’s ribs creaking dangerously as his dad leans his head against Gordon’s chest. Gordon groans.

“Dad… Can’t breathe…”

“Whoops.” Dad mutters and even though he doesn’t let Gordon go, his arms loosen enough that Gordon’s able to take a deep breath. “I’m just… Very happy to see you out of that tube.”

“Me too.” Gordon lets Dad kiss his cheek and hug him one more time before reluctantly letting him go.

“So.” G-Man and Darnold hug Gordon together, quickly letting him go. Darnold claps Gordon’s shoulder and moves away while G-Man stays standing in front of him. Gordon’s knees are shaking from the length of time he’s been standing and G-Man helps him sit down at the breakfast bar. “I… Was told you did thissss. To protect our family.”

“M-Montobar wanted to hire you through your employers. I didn’t know he was bluffing.”

“Yessss. I suppose I never… Properly discuss my employerssss.” G-Man sits on a stool next to Gordon and lets Gordon rest his head on G’s shoulder. “But that must change.”

“If you don’t want to-” Gordon tries to say, but G shakes his head. Gordon notices the others have gone to sit in the living room, to give the two of them the illusion of privacy.

“In human terms… I suppose you could consider my job… A non-profit. Volunteer position.” G’s mouth twists and he wiggles his hand like he’s trying to shake the right words out of it. “My employers are… Able to view a variety of worldsssss. I am sent if they… See something important happening that they want investigated.” G looks at Gordon. “Such as the Resonance Cascade.”

“Oh.” Gordon blinks as he takes this new information in. “Oh, so Montobar-?”

“Never could’ve.... Made me do anything I. Didn’t want to. Even my employers have… No such power.”

“Ah. So all this was for nothing?” Gordon asks, feeling stupid, and G shakes his head.

“No. You have… Once again proven yourself. A good man, willing to. Do anything for those he lovesssss.” G wraps an arm around Gordon and squeezes him once, briefly. “However. If you… Run off to do anything like. Thissss. Again, I will not be the only one who… Puts you under house arrest.”

“Not surprised.” Gordon laughs and G keeps a steadying hand on his elbow as he slides off the bar stool and heads to the living room, dropping onto the couch between his dads and tucking his head under Dad’s chin as Dad wraps an arm around him protectively. “I’m gonna take a nap now.”

“Alright, Gordon.” Dad mutters and someone else turns the TV on, keeping the volume low. 

The sound of being surrounded by his family as they talk, safe and happy, helps Gordon drop off to sleep, warm in a way that has nothing to do with the fire burning contently in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Come say hi on Tumblr @ holdyourbreathfornow


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